Despite intense bombing and severe food shortages, several Carmelite nuns are refusing to abandon the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo and have appealed for urgent aid.

“The bombs are falling all around us, but we are not going to leave the people in their suffering,” said Sr. Anne-Francoise, a French nun from a community of Discalced Carmelites in Aleppo. “The people here are suffering and dying.”

A traditionalist group of Catholic bishops and priests that has been separated from the wider church for decades appears to have abandoned efforts to reunite with Rome, releasing a statement Wednesday that claims Pope Francis is encouraging the spreading of errors in church teaching.

The Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 mainly in opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, says now it "does not primarily seek a canonical recognition" from the Vatican for its continuing activities.